MOVIE NEWS – Todd Howard, who directed the Bethesda-developed Fallout games, explained the series’ most controversial departure from the games’ canon.

The Fallout series is a massive success for everyone involved in its creation. At the same time, it also caused serious controversy in the community. Some players felt (and with good reason) that the first season’s events contradicted the series canon so far. This situation prompted Todd Howard himself, who has worked at Bethesda for over 30 years, to come forward and give an official answer.

The company’s CEO reassured fans that there are no plans to rewrite events that are already part of the franchise’s history.

SPOILERS AHEAD! In the following, we will talk about the events that took place in the series’ first season.

Todd Howard clears things up about Fallout: New Vegas

In an interview with IGN, in which series producer Jonathan Nolan also participated, Todd Howard clarified the events surrounding the destruction of Shady Sands. The city is still thriving in the year 2281 in Fallout: New Vegas. However, in Prime Video’s fiction, it only appears as a massive crater from a nuclear impact. In addition, the series sends confusing messages about its destruction, which many interpreted as the bombs destroying the city in 2277. This now-ruled-out possibility would have made the video game’s events pointless.

Todd Howard confirmed that the events of both Fallout: New Vegas and the series actually happened, although he admitted that the time frame was very small.

“We’re careful about the timeline,” he says. “There might be a little bit of confusion in some places. But everything that happened in the previous games, including New Vegas, happened. We’re very careful about that. (…) All I can say is we’re threading it’s tighter there, but the bombs fall just after the events of New Vegas,” he explained. This confirms the fan theory that there will be several years between the game and the nuclear attack.

The truth is that the destruction of Shady Sands is a great catalyst for the plot and an event without which the series would not make sense.

Plus, both the folks at Bethesda and Amazon Prime really wanted to create something that ties into the Fallout chronology. It wasn’t just about reliving the events of one of the games. But about new events happening that will affect a future Fallout 5. But they insisted on not rewriting the series’ past. “If we’d gone a different direction, the show would be the only thing that doesn’t fit with that universe…” – said Jonathan Nolan.

Although Bethesda managed to get out of this situation well, hopefully, they will be more careful with the information in a possible second season. Especially with the way they are presented. However, there is also a positive reading: if there is so much discussion about the lore, it is because the series is successful, and Fallout is at one of the highest peaks of popularity.

Source: IGN